The Palm Beach Post quoted Henry saying this about Saturday's opponent in Bryant-Denny Stadium: "They ain't what people think. They're good and everything, but they can be beat, too. They just execute well. They just execute and beat you."

And this: "We got speed against them. You got speed, you can win."

Henry's comments became a national story, with a headline on the front page of ESPN.com and tweets from the likes of Erin Andrews.

"Let's be fair to Cory," Pelini said. "I watched the interview. Obviously, I cringed when he said that. For five or six straight questions, he had said, 'Alabama's a great team. We just gotta worry about ourselves. We just gotta keep getting better.' And he just kept getting prodded and prodded and prodded and prodded.

"Actually, that question was very much taken out of context. I feel bad for the young man that he was portrayed that way because that's not who he is. He's not a braggart, and he's not that kind of kid. I feel terrible about how that went down (Wednesday). I don't like how that was handled."

Pelini said Henry feels bad about the situation.

"Cory's the kind of guy who comes here every day, works his tail off, never talks," Pelini said. "Is just a very quiet kid. I watched it go down and stepped in just a little too late, but he just kept getting prodded and prodded."

Pelini, in his first year at FAU after serving as his brother Bo's defensive coordinator at Nebraska, brings an interesting background to questions about journalism. He has a master's degree in the subject from Kansas State, although he said his emphasis was in public relations.

Pelini also discussed wide receiver Duron Carter, who enrolled at Alabama last year but never played for the Crimson Tide before transferring recently to Florida Atlantic. The NCAA denied FAU's request for a waiver that would've allowed Carter to be eligible to play this season.

"We knew it was a long shot" for Carter to play this season, Pelini said. "There were some things going on in Duron's life that forced the transfer in our mind. Coach (Nick) Saban was gracious enough to back the transfer and actually wrote a letter supporting Duron in his request for the waiver."

Pelini said Carter is playing on the scout team right now at FAU.

"Duron's working very hard to be part of this program," Pelini said. "I have a policy here; I do not put transfers on scholarship immediately. I make them earn their spot and prove to me that they want to be here and they can handle the structure of my program.

"So far, so good with Duron. He's really turned himself around and become a pretty good teammate. He's continuing to do well in school and hopefully, come spring, becomes a major part of our offense as we go into spring ball."

Pelini said FAU put Carter "on a behavioral contract in terms of what his expectations were. We haven't had to pull that out of the drawer. ... He knows. There's no place to go from here."